The present invention relates to a device for cutting string cheese to a specific length as it is formed. String cheese is extruded very much like plastic, being put under pressure and forced through an opening of an appropriate size and shape so that it comes out in a string. In the past, the problem has been to make the string an appropriate length. If the string cheese is travelling horizontally at the time it is cut, frequently it is drawn to a thinner cross section over part of its length so that the weight of the piece is not uniform. If it is moving vertically, it is possible to use a limit switch having a projecting stainless steel wire to actuate the cutter, but the stainless steel wire is fragile and the weight of the cheese is often great enough to bend the wire so that the length of the piece becomes something other than was intended. In addition, because the string cheese drops into a salt water cooling bath once it is cut, brine is splashed on the cheese cutting mechanism thereby harming any of the exposed electronic circuits.
The prior art closest to the present invention is U.S. Pat. No. 1,564,637 to Snyder; U.S. Pat. No. 2,712,693 to Comparette; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,392,801 to Meyer. Snyder discloses an apparatus for forming cream centers in candy. A number of different centers for candy are extruded, but they are all cut simultaneously by a wire frame which is moved under the extruding nozzle by a hand lever. Thus, they are all cut simultaneously whether or not they are the same size. The Comparette patent is concerned with extruding balls of cheese, and the mechanism for severing the ball from the extruder nozzle is completely different from the mechanism in the present invention. There is nothing in Comparette that shows any means for measuring the length or size of the cheese to determine when it should be cut off. Finally, the Meyer patent shows a process in which the cheese is pulled under tension and the cutoff device is actuated by a limit switch which runs a solenoid to operate a knife. The cheese is travelling horizontally when it strikes the limit switch and is crossing a trough-shaped tilt table. Neither the mechanism nor the condition of operation are much like that of the present invention.